The Tenuous Place of Big Philanthropy in America'S Social Contract

credit: Photo: Getty Images, Stephen Trussler

Sohrab Ahmari's new book, Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty and What to Do About It, isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of free enterprise.

In fact, the co-founder and editor of Compact magazine says in a press release that the book is "not comprehensive by any means."

But that doesn't mean he's done with his criticism of big, private philanthropy.

In fact, he says in a New York Times op-ed that it's time to start looking at philanthropy in a different way.

"Big philanthropy is not subject to any serious 'countervailing power' from other market participants," Ahmari writes.

"Their power hasn�t been subject to any real democratic counter pressure from policymakers, either, since the time of the 1969 Tax Reform Act."

In fact, big, private philanthropy is "tax-incentivized and has always occupied a nebulous position in the American polity neither fully public nor pristinely private in its legal structure or self-understanding, much less among the citizenry," Ahmari writes.

He argues that big, private philanthropy uses the state's coercive power for its own benefit, and he calls for a more participatory, democratic, and tax-in

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